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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133767">Under Bright Lights and Smooth Glass</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctuaria/pseuds/Sanctuaria'>Sanctuaria</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Divergence, Daisy as Director because if that’s not endgame for her I’m gonna riot, Daisy just needs a break, Deke needs to learn that unconscious people do not STAY unconscious, Dekesy, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, LemonQuake, Lemons, Love Confessions, episode 7x06, season 7, the fruit NOT THE FANDOM TERM</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:41:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133767</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctuaria/pseuds/Sanctuaria</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He presses the button beside the door to his bunk and immediately shields his eyes from the bright lights of the cramped hallway outside, stumbling out and hearing it shut behind him. His eyes are still adjusting as he makes his way to the common area, only for his feet to bring him directly to medical instead for some reason. </p>
<p>He spies Daisy’s prone form through two panes of glass as he hovers outside the door. </p>
<p>Yeah, no reason at all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Deke Shaw/Skye | Daisy Johnson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>fill the daisy/deke tag with actual content 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Under Bright Lights and Smooth Glass</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay so I was depressed with the lack of Dekesy in my last two season 7 fics and apparently <i>you can pry this ship out of my cold dead hands</i> so here we are.</p>
<p>Obviously there is not time for such a conversation to have happened in canon, so this occurs in a universe where Mack was the only one left behind in 7x06.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tiny cube that makes up his bunk is blanketed in darkness except for the slight green glow of the small clock on the shelf above his head. It is silent in the small space, or as silent as it ever gets in a spaceship. The low hum of the air processors is ever-present even when they are landed, and the occasional <em>whoosh</em> of the water cyclers audible over it. Still though, it’s dark, and mostly silent, and that is more than could ever be said for what he’d grown up with in the Lighthouse, so there is no real explanation as to why Deke can’t fall asleep, besides the inability to shut off his brain.</p>
<p>“That’s just like Fitz when he’s stressed about a problem,” his Nana would probably say if he told her, although she is hopefully fast asleep in her own tiny cube three doors down. “You get that from him.”</p>
<p>Sometimes the FitzSimmons genes suck.</p>
<p>He wonders if she is sleeping at all. She probably can, now, right? Now that her implant is fixed and her memories of Fitz have faded away or been suppressed or however that works.</p>
<p>
  <em>“He is completely exposed, and they will kill him if they find him, so no one can know his location.”</em>
</p>
<p>Deke snorts. So much for “we never leave each other’s side anymore.”</p>
<p>He wishes he could talk to her about it. Show up at her door, tell her he can’t sleep and then maybe they could worry about Fitz together. But he’s not ten years old anymore, and Nana is keeping everyone at arms length anyway. She made it perfectly clear she didn’t want to discuss it, not once D.I.A.N.A. was back to doing its job.</p>
<p>He’s alone. Again.</p>
<p>Deke rolls over, facing away from the clock’s light, but it’s not the light that’s the issue. He lets out one more full-body sigh, then gives up on sleep for the night—afternoon? he can’t really keep track—and pulls on some pants and a sweater over his shirt as a ward against the chilled air of the Zephyr. He presses the button beside the door and immediately shields his eyes from the bright lights of the cramped hallway outside, stumbling out and hearing it shut behind him. His eyes are still adjusting as he makes his way to the common area, only for his feet to bring him directly to medical instead for some reason.</p>
<p>He spies Daisy’s prone form through two panes of glass as he hovers outside the door.</p>
<p>Yeah, no reason at all.</p>
<p>The room is occupied by more than just Daisy, so he knocks once on the door before opening it and stepping through. Daniel Sousa looks up from his hunched over position on the edge of the table, looking about as bad as Deke feels. “It’s your sleep shift,” Deke lies. “You should get some rest.”</p>
<p>“I’m okay here,” Sousa says, turning his gaze back to the healing pod. His expression is solemn, the faintest of lines between his eyes.</p>
<p>“No, you’re not,” Deke tells him, stepping up beside the other agent and trying to ignore the uncomfortable flop of his stomach. “You haven’t slept in about twenty-four hours just like the rest of us.”</p>
<p>Sousa gives him a pinched, polite smile. “I dealt with worse in the war.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, here at future-S.H.I.E.L.D. sleep is a precious commodity, so take it while you can get it,” Deke says, voice straining for an easy-going lightness that is anything but what he feels. “It’s my turn to keep watch.”</p>
<p>“…All right,” Sousa agrees reluctantly, with one last glance at Daisy’s immobile form. It’s long, at least five whole seconds—not that he’s counting, because he doesn’t <em>care</em> and that would be <em>weird</em>—and Deke watches him go, trying not to glare at the man’s retreating back. He shouldn’t feel like this—Daisy is only alive because Sousa was able to make good use of her glass shard and get them out—but something about Sousa makes his chest go all tight.</p>
<p>It’s because he yelled at Nana while she was struggling, Deke thinks as the door slides shut behind him. That’s it.</p>
<p>Because he’s definitely not <em>jealous</em> or something stupid like that. He just knows that if not for the haunted, desperate look in Sousa’s eyes <em>he</em> would have been the one sitting at Daisy’s side if it wasn’t Coulson or May or Simmons—<em>he</em> would be the guy who by the others’ standards barely knows her and yet stays awake all night to keep her company. He’s known her for one and a half years at this point, and, yeah, for a lot of that she was in space and he was on Earth but at least he <em>knew of her existence</em> and <em>thought about her</em> and stuff, which is more than Sousa can say.</p>
<p>Deke approaches the healing pod with slow, shuffling steps, his fingers ghosting over the top of the glass as he looks down at Daisy’s face. Dark circles are painted underneath her eyes; her lips are pale but not the terrifying mottled blue like before. Her mouth is slightly open as she lies there, motionless except for the slight rise and fall of her chest, hair askew in a fanning of curls around her head. Intellectually, he knows she’s going to be all right—Nana confirmed as much after her first stint into the pod for wound repair and the beginnings of blood regeneration, Daisy’s fifteen minutes of lucidity just barely allowing them to update her on the Mack and Coulson situation before she’d had to be put back in again—but he’ll never get used to seeing her like this, injured and bloodied and pale.</p>
<p>He watches her, silent, through the glass. A headache is coming on, a low throbbing in his skull. Nana and Bobo. Daisy. Mack, Coulson, the Chronicoms that are always two steps ahead of them…</p>
<p>Deke almost misses the days when the most he had to worry about was a couple of Kreepers and some roaches. At least then he’d had no one left to lose that he cared about.</p>
<p>Almost.</p>
<p>“We need you,” Deke says softly, gazing down at Daisy’s slack face. “I need you, okay? So take your time and get better, but <em>get better</em>.” He’s silent for another minute, nothing but the whirr of the air processors behind him. Sousa’s gone to bed but May is holed up in the cockpit, he knows, keeping an eye on things from there, but other than that they’re alone. “You’re the one I talk to about this stuff, you know? Even though you’re aggravating and annoyingly bullheaded and so goddamn selfless about it. And you pretend you’re still annoyed by me hanging around but you talk to me too for some reason.”</p>
<p>Deke lets his head fall slightly. “I’m worried about Nana and Bobo.” He stops, remembering his promise, but Daisy’s unconscious anyway, and there’s no one else around to hear him. Still, he airs on the side of caution—the cat is definitely <em>not</em> out of the food sack on this one, and mucking this one up for his Nana is the last thing he wants to do. “Fitz might be in danger and we wouldn’t even know it. And Simmons—she tries to act like she’s doing fine and holding it together, but she’s different too. I know you’ve seen it. She won’t confide in you; she won’t confide in me… Sometimes it feels like Enoch is more part of the family than I am, and he’s not even a person.”</p>
<p>He pauses. “Okay, I know that sounds mean, but that’s literally what he said to me like five times yesterday when I tried to refer to him as one, so—” Deke sighs. “What I’m trying to say is…I wish you would wake up. And I wish this stuff didn’t keep happening to you. I heard what the rest of the team was saying about Whitehall and your mom…”</p>
<p>
  <em>“Malick got his instructions from Whitehall.”</em>
</p>
<p><em>“</em>The<em> Whitehall?”</em></p>
<p>
  <em>“He captured Jiaying after getting out of prison. Cut her open, removed every organ he could trying to get her power, and then dumped what was left of her for Cal to find. It’s why he was the way he was. Why they were the way they were, both of them.”</em>
</p>
<p>He swallows. “That’s horrible, and so messed up, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. And I hope you’re not having bad dreams in there or something…I don’t even know if you can dream in the pod…”</p>
<p>Deke presses his palm to the glass, the surface smooth and cool under his hand. “Despite what you think, you’re the last one who’d deserve it. I’d hurt anyone who ever left a scar on you. After everything that’s happened, you deserve peace.” The lump in his throat threatens to choke him, but he manages to get out the next words anyway. “You deserve the world.”</p>
<p>Her eyelids flutter, and Deke jerks back, whipping his hand away from the glass. She blinks confusedly a couple of times before her dark eyes focus on him. He fumbles and presses the button to release her from the pod, the metal bed sliding out from underneath the glass casing with Daisy on top of it. “You’re supposed to be out for another hour,” Deke tells her, trying to cover up his fluster.</p>
<p>“How can I sleep with so much talking,” Daisy grumbles, gingerly lifting each arm and attempting to push herself up. Deke hurries to help her, his hand on her back propping her up until she can reach a full sitting position. Her hair is a mess of soft curls, and he resists the urge to run his hand through them even as the tips of them tickle his fingers.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he says, stepping back once she’s seated on her own. Daisy blinks a few more times, shifting her arms and legs with a pained grimace. “…How long have you been awake?”</p>
<p>Daisy eyes him. “Longer than you’d like.”</p>
<p>He gulps, turning toward the door. “I can go get Nana; she can check you over—” Her hand reaches out and catches his, stopping him, her fingers cold against his own.</p>
<p>“Stay, please,” Daisy says, pulling her hand back and crossing her arms, elbows tucked in close to her body with minuscule trembles. His sweater is half off before he even realizes what he’s doing, and he’s pretty sure his ears are red as he holds it out to her. She pulls it on over her own with a faint smile that quickly transforms into a wince, her movements exaggeratedly slow to avoid aggravating all the places previously bleeding and now reduced to still-tender bruises by the pod. Seeing her wearing his sweater makes his stomach somersault again, and he hurriedly crushes that feeling down.</p>
<p>Daisy looks up at him with a strange expression on her face. “So that’s what the lemons mean, huh?”</p>
<p>He huffs a nervous laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p>
<p>She gives him a soft look. “Thanks him for not pressing it a year ago,” she says. “I wasn’t ready, and…it means more to me than you know.” Her use of past tense rings in his ears.</p>
<p>“Of course,” he says, mouth dry. “I wasn’t gonna push you into anything you didn’t want, or burden you with how I felt—I’m still not going to. Because both people wanting it, that’s what makes it good. That’s what makes it real.”</p>
<p>Her eyes never leave his. “What do the lemons mean, Deke?”</p>
<p>His heart thunders in his ears. All this time, he’s assumed she never asked because she wasn’t ready to know.</p>
<p>But now she’s asking.</p>
<p>“In the Lighthouse…in the Lighthouse, when you liked someone, and you wanted to tell them how you felt, you saved up your tokens and bought them a lemon,” Deke says. “Leave it in their bunk so they can’t miss it, but if they never talk to you about it, you have your answer, no harm done. I don’t know how the tradition started, but lemons…they’re not utilitarian. Not like oranges, where you can just take a big ol’ bite out of them. It was lemons because it meant your interest wasn’t either—wasn’t about joint living quarter reassignments, or survival, or whatever. It was about more than that. And in a place where everything was utilitarian…”</p>
<p>Daisy nods, her expression guarded. She takes a deep breath, fingers running over the knit of the sweater, her arms still crossed. “I’m not a Sequoia, or a Snowflake.”</p>
<p>“No,” Deke says, nearly tripping over his words. “<em>No</em>. You’re different…you’ve always been different.” He swallows, nearly choking on his own tongue. “I know I said to you when we started this whole time traveling mess that I’m not the same guy I was in the Lighthouse, but I’m not the same guy I was as millionaire tech CEO either. That Deke Shaw was broken too, just in an entirely different way.”</p>
<p>Daisy gives him a skeptical look. “That Deke Shaw was three weeks ago.”</p>
<p>“Three weeks and a hundred and thirty-three years!” Deke protests.</p>
<p>“A hundred and thirty-three years?” Daisy asks, confused. “Oh, from 2019 to 1931 to…” She stops, looking vaguely impressed. “Wow, quick math.”</p>
<p>He taps one side of his head with his pointer finger. “FitzSimmons brain.”</p>
<p>Daisy looks up at the ceiling. “…don’t say that; that makes this weirder than it already is.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be asking anything of you right now,” Deke says. “You’re in pain, you’re probably on a lot of drugs—”</p>
<p>“No drugs,” Daisy grimaces.</p>
<p>Deke does a double-take, looking her up and down. “Masochist much? Daisy—”</p>
<p>“With Mack and Coulson gone and May…compromised…” Daisy purses her lips. “I’m in charge. I have to be clear-headed.”</p>
<p>“<em>In pain</em> isn’t clear-headed!”</p>
<p>“I’ve had worse,” Daisy tells him softly. “I’m just a little sore.” She holds out a hand to him, clearly looking for him to help her up off the metal bed, and he helps her gingerly off of it, supporting her weight until both of her bare feet are planted on the floor. She looks a bit unsteady, but unlikely to keel over, so he figures he doesn’t have to run for Nana just yet. Daisy presses a hand to her head. “And a little…woozy. It’s those damn puffies all over again.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you really should have tried to keep your blood <em>inside</em> your body,” Deke tells her, a smile playing at the edge of his mouth. “I’ve heard that works really well.”</p>
<p>Daisy throws him a scathing look that fails to hide the amusement underneath it. Her fingers play with the sleeve of his sweater, revealing a lurid red-purple bruise over her right wrist, a small line of raised flesh on top of it. The look softens. “The scars,” she says. “…It’s a long list. Luckily most of them are already dead, or blacklisted from the foster care program after an anonymous online tip, so.” She inhales deeply, staring at the floor. “When this is over…”</p>
<p>“When this is over,” Deke repeats, scarcely able to breathe.</p>
<p>She lifts her head and meets his eyes. “When this is over, I’ll buy you a lemon.” Deke can’t help the smile that starts spreading over his face, the surge of joy in his chest. “But what I need from you now is a good agent. We have to find Mack, and figure out if there’s some way to get Coulson back, not to mention fix whatever the Chronicoms have screwed up this time.”</p>
<p>Deke nods, clamping down on that soaring sensation and locking it away. For the future. “Whatever you need…Director.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Fanart, because I am trash for this ship (and the EYELINER):</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Any and all feedback appreciated!! Also, someone accidentally released the promo for 7x08 on Twitter (rip that Marvel Canada intern; we appreciate your sacrifice) so if you want to watch it you can <a href="https://twitter.com/occamii/status/1280572025921290240?s=21">here</a>. No major spoilers for 7x07 that we couldn't have guessed ourselves ;)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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